Last week was my son’s 10th birthday and as most parents do, we are trying to pick an appropriate present for his age. Interesting thing is; the older they get, the job is becoming easier and easier for us – they already know what they want!

Our son wanted an iPod Touch. He already knew the features, in what colours they come, and which colour he’d want… Everything was decided, easy task for parents. Of course, we asked him, why iPod – he said:

“All my friends have it!”

Simple. the force that influences you every day when it comes to decision making, from the biggest decisions like which school to choose for your children, down to the smaller every day choices like where to go for lunch, is called social proof.

But what about us in business, how do we use Social Proof in our marketing?

Marketing, to a large degree is about social proof. In an article about social proof, TechCrunch clearly identified 5 different categories of social proof:

1. Expert Social Proof: Approval from a credible expert, such as an infdustry blogger or other authority

2. Celebrity Social Proof: Approval or endorsement from celebrities, especially those that are unpaid

3. “Wisdom of the crowds” Social Proof: Approval from a large group of people (like why you were Nike shoes)

4. “Wisdom of your friends” Social Proof: Approval from your friends or people you know (like the above case mentioned about iPod Touch)

5. User Social Proof: Approval from current users of the product/service, such as customer testimonials, case studies, and reviews.

Testimonials are great form of user social proof, publishing testimonials and case studies allows you to highlight the positive experiences of your customers and evoke the “I’ll have what she’s having”effect.

While written testimonials are OK and are widely used in marketing, video testimonials are by far more effective. For several reasons;

First one is the fact that many people are not 100% convinced in the authenticity of a written testimonial, secondly the nature of video is that is more persuasive, you can here the customer, see it and pick up that non-verbal communication that reassures us – this is genuine, as human eye (and ear) is very well trained to pick up when something is fake.

Finally, video testimonial can be easily amplified, for example; firstly by number of views the video attracts, number of likes is also a good social proof. You can track how many views you are getting from other sites, from your channel, or from website. A written testimonial is just sitting on your website and is only accessed by your website visitors.

Video testimonial can be further shared on your Facebook page, by embedding, in your tweets and on your LinkedIn page (both personal and company page).

Then you can share it in your blog and all those views are adding up and contributing to your brand’s social proof and ultimately to better conversion.

No matter what businesses or orgnisation you are coming from, video marketing should not be ignored especially in this new social world.